A stop in Deer Lodge Montana is well worth the time. The Old Montana State Prison—a topic for another post—houses several interesting museums. One that took me utterly by surprise is the Montana Auto Museum. Rated by USA Today as one of the top ten auto museums in the country, there are over 160 automobiles on display here, from the very earliest days of the horseless carriage to the most innovative new EV powered vehicles.
I found myself quite enamored by all the hood ornaments. Did you know that hood ornaments began life as a nice way to adorn (and handle) the radiator cap which was initially positioned on the hood of the vehicle?
Aren’t they fascinating? They seem to trace male fetishes through the decades. It’s kind of too bad that hood ornaments interfere with drag coefficient because it would be interesting to see what values would rise to the fore today.
Rangewriter 
Linda, these are so very cool. Thanks for sharing them. I was humming songs from REO Speedwagon as a I perused them. Thanks, Keith
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Cool! Thanks, Keith.
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Interesting. It’s also interesting how our love affair with the automobile has caused the greatest harm to the world’s environment in just over 100 hundred years than anything else. We overlay soil with concrete to have places to park; we displace humans to route concrete passageways for our automobiles; we do all manner of legal and illegal acts associated with our automobiles. Obviously, we’ve acted unconsciously in various ways relative to our automobile, to the determent of ourselves. What can I say, we’re only human?
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Indeed. The automobile has intoxicated us into killing our planet and the animals we share it with. I wonder how we would have killed the planet if we had not made the leap to cars. I suspect we’d have dreamed up something else just as toxic. Oh dear, like nuclear weapons…?
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We’re either pursuing some form of creature comfort that’s bad for the planet, or we’re trying to eradicate each other from existence. Par, wouldn’t you say?
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‘fraid so. And disheartening.
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You need to do an “I (eye) on Idaho” book.
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Haha. Only these are in Montana. 😍
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I love hood ornaments and you have a lovely collection here. That REO Speedwagon was news to me too!
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I’m glad to hear that Janis. I thought maybe I was just incredibly stupid! 🧐
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I suppose most of the ornaments were meant to be used to advertise speed, power and to sell cars. But probably found to be lethal when impaling pedestrians.
The swan and busty lady probably the least hurtful.
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Yes, once the radiator cap was buried under the hood of the car, the hood ornaments really served no useful purpose and in addition to adding an extra drag coefficient, yikes, who wants to be impaled by wings or the nose of a toy plane? I suppose for the gentlemen, being impaled by a busty lady would ease the discomfort a bit. 🤣
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When my husband and I go to car shows, I ‘m photographing the chrome and hood ornaments and he is looking under the hood and discussing valves and horsepower with the car’s owner. Great photos. I had to look up REO Speedwagon band and indeed it is named after a 1915 truck designed by Ransom Olds of Oldsmobile fame. Fun to see the ornaments and realize cars had so much more style back in the old days than they do now!
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Loved this: I ‘m photographing the chrome and hood ornaments and he is looking under the hood and discussing valves and horsepower with the car’s owner. There’s something about those chromosomes!
It is very hard to distinguish one brand from another these days. I guess it’s due to the push for aerodynamics, but within automobile categories, they all look the same.
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A wonderful collection of hood ornaments for sure. I’ve had fun shooting at car museums and car shows in the past. My favorite auto subjects are the old rusty ones though. We have a big lot a few towns north filled with rusty relics that are so much fun to shoot.
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That’s funny Denise, because I’m usually drawn to the older, more natural ones, too. We spent a lot of time in the prison itself, none of us expecting to be particularly interested in the car museum. But this one was so fine that all 3 of us (not car aficionados by any means) ran out of time before the place closed. These were really cool specimens and each had a lovely story to accompany it.
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I have a lovely solid brass, very pugnacious-looking, large-pawed hare that was once a hood ornament on a 1922 Alvis car. I tried to insert a photo here, but it doesn’t work. Anyway, treasured as a family heirloom – though we never owned the car!
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What a marvelous heirloom! I don’t know Alvis cars. I’ll have to search that. A hare for a hood ornament! I love it.
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Have been thinking about writing a post on some of the weird things my daughter/granddaughters are going to inherit when I move on to the next phase! Maybe soon.
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Cool! I’ll look forward to that one. Just found the bunny! Too cute.
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Somewhere I have information about him, from the Alvis Car Company, which amazingly is still manufacturing today!
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